Apr 26, 2007 4:55 PM
Aixa B. Rodriguez taught Spanish and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the HS for Contemporary Arts during the 2005-06 school year before joining a charter school.
I am a UFT member on leave from the city’s public school system. I took this leave to join a charter school. It was a difficult decision and, after turning the position down once, I finally accepted it because of the assurances of its CEO that I would not be risking or losing anything.
As a first-year teacher, I was stressed out and desperately wanted the mentoring and opportunity for professional development that was promised. I was attracted to a school that was in line with my educational philosophy — or at least seemed to be.
Between the first time I turned the position down and when I finally accepted it last summer, I received e-mails from the school leader with links to the Teachers Retirement System, where it was stated that charter schools could participate in TRS. She told me not to believe anything I might be hearing from my colleagues because they have an “interest as members of a union.”
Later, I found out that the school’s leader had never researched TRS nor planned for it in her budget. It was looked at as an expensive option and so was abandoned in favor of a 401(k) plan. I was disappointed and began to question everything from that moment on.
In the first two weeks of school, during one 24-hour period, one teacher was fired and two attempted to resign only to be terminated immediately and denied even the opportunity to finish out the day, let alone the four weeks notice that they gave. By the first week of October, the school was on math teacher number two, English teacher number two, and biology teacher number three. The director of operations and finance also resigned.
There were serious issues with instruction, discipline and grading. There was no biology lab. There were problems with the scheduling for students who were entitled to special education services and ESL. IEPs were denied to teachers despite repeated requests. Instruction and assessment were being delivered and grades entered without the implementation of the IEPs.
The dates for grades to be entered were being made up as the year went along. The academic calendar did not appear until Nov. 6 and even then it was completely wrong and had to be revised two days later. Daily memoranda included different dates for the inputting of grades into an Excel spreadsheet on one solitary computer. ATS grading bubble sheets were not being used. Copies of the document were denied to us. We would discover why when students confronted us about grades and comments we had not put into the Excel spreadsheet. All of the first report cards were hand-written by the CEO.
At several points of high tension teachers were told that since the school’s faculty was not represented by a union, if we didn’t like something we were free to leave. A pattern was emerging. If you dared to bring up a concern or ask a question or disagree you became the next target. The faculty attempted to cobble together a letter to the school’s board of trustees to address issues as basic as time between blocks to use the restroom, but the letter floundered, stuck in a quagmire of semantics. Teachers were worried they would suffer the same fate as the teachers they had seen humiliated, threatened, had the police called on them and denied their pay.
But it was not only the teachers who were subject to humiliation and harassment — the students were as well. We were being asked to write students up for “bizarre” behavior even when all teachers agreed they had no problem with the student. Expulsions were based on flimsy evidence, the notification of teachers occurring ex post facto.
There were repeated suspensions of students who were isolated in a room in the administrative suite working from handouts with just textbooks but no teacher.
Teachers challenged and questioned these issues at staff meetings and were rebuffed. Teenage students came into my classroom crying after being pulled into the office. Students were made to apologize to the class for not wearing the proper shoes and therefore being out of uniform. One student was told to remove his shoes so the soles could be examined as the CEO doubted they were real shoes.
This situation motivated me to reach out for help by calling the State Education Department. I put all of our concerns into an eight-page document and agreed to go on record with SED’s office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) regarding special education and discipline.
At the same time, I was receiving countless memoranda maligning my classroom décor and my curriculum insinuating that they had a sexual nature. In my Spanish classroom I had hung up a print of Pablo Picasso’s painting, “The Dream,” as well as other paintings from a set sold at the Museum of Modern Art. I was told that parents complained that it depicted nudity and that it had nothing to do with my curriculum. I had asked students to visit several exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History and assigned an optional extra-credit paper on the movie “Apocalypto.” These were used to justify my termination — about two weeks after a visit to the school by officials from the SED and VESID.
On Jan. 19, I received a letter from VESID stating that all five allegations had been substantiated. It was vindication that I had indeed told the truth. I have filed a complaint with the Division of Human Rights. One of the teachers who was let go in that 24 hour period has won her case in small claims court. The second teacher awaits her case in May.
As for me, I have lost the idealism I started out with. My faith in the charter school movement is broken. My leave is not over and I cannot return to my previous school, which in my mind is now a Shangri-la. This has been an expensive lesson. I will never again work for a school that is not represented by a union.